Resto Shaman Healing in Cata

When It comes to heroic healing dungeon healing there is one preaty big point that the above posts tend to miss or gloss over, for lack of a better analogy, shaman go forth and shaman. Simply put, shaman are the most "offensive" healers in wow, you should use all tools you have, many often overlook the fact the best heals are the ones you never have to cast.

Interrupts:

Wind Shear. It is amazing use it a lot. Interrupting a range to bring it to the tank cuts down damage significantly, a tank going to round up a loose mob often puts his back to the group, this is very bad. Also when you have little damage coming in watch a burn target and help on interrupts.

Grounding Totem: It gets no love these days but if Wind shear is on CD grounding can eat the bad spell, saving a lot of damage.

Hex/Bind Elements: don't forget that these spells interrupt casts as well, even if the CC will break again in a few moments or instantly, it still stops the cast.

Crowd Control:

Now with Hex and Bind Elements we are one of the best CC classes in the game. While healing you may not be the main CC'er look what you can do and who is doing what kind of other CC's and what the cast times cool downs and durations are. When there is a lot going on and the dps is "trying" to get of the fire they may not notice that a CC broke, rather than let Whirlwindy the Big Axe Ogre go have a mage sandwich, Hex it. If you see a CC about to break and no "re-sheep" is incoming Hex/bind it.

Dps:

Yeah that's right dps, some mobs out there go BOOM after a set amount of time or lock people in bubble shields, in cases where no one needs instant healing help dps. Think about it whats worse on your mana, using a Healing surge to top someone off quick and helping the dps beat a damage timer, or using healing wave pre-blast to top someone up only then have an aoe rock the party a few moments latter. Even a simple set it and forget it flame shock can and does help.


Purge:
While used very little, when a mob has a buff that can be purged 9/10 times you will be far better off purging than casting anything else. Purge when it can be used is a huge damage reduction.

This list does go on, Frost Shock, Earth Shock, ect.

One final thought, in many forum threads and even in this one, you find people saying "it's the dps's job to reduce incomming damage" well it's yours as well. Be a team player help the dps and the tank do their jobs, and yours will be much easier.

I found Healing Rain to be very effective in 5mans. Sometimes you gotta tell the range to stand in it.

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Originally Posted by kahlina

Do any of you guys have any tips for healing raids? Chain heal seems to be pretty useless at the moment for the cast time vs the amount healed. Healing rain is nice, but some fights require players to spread out, it uses a significant amount of mana, and is on a 10 sec cd.

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Keep 4 rolling riptides for your tank/group. I just started using Chain Heal again in raids, and it is amazing. The chaining effect of the heal has been buffed from what we're used to in Wrath. You can cast chain heal on a range and have it chain reliably now. Glyph of Chain Heal is also amazing if you have the gear level to support an aoe healing role.

Also, if you having mana troubles I highly recommend Corrupted Egg Shell. Combined with Mana Tide Totem every 2 minutes, this trinket has solved my mana problems while still trying to collect more spirit/crit in my gear. This also helps with the switch from Glyph of Water Shield to Glyph of Earthliving Weapon. Hope this helps.

Started just healing this expantion around and raid healing for the first time ever. Just got into BoT with guild and was given a heal assignment of healing the War main tank (Halfus) and group heals when i can. From what i have been told healers are to be doing 9k Hps. I was having a hard time even getting 8k and when i was pulling 8k was pretty much out of mana by the time first dragon is down. I done what has been said on here. Keep ES on tank with Rip. HW with GHW needed with a chain heal from time to time on a meele dps after my 2nd healing wave with Tidal Waves ( riptide is almost always on cd for 2 sec right after the 2nd heal).

I use to have alot of haste and from what ppl have told me is to get crit. It seems that is up in the air with alot of ppl. I see alot of ppl going haste others crit. But none the less i am having a hard time pulling anything near 9k hps with doing what i have said above without blowing mana

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Originally Posted by Linss

I found Healing Rain to be very effective in 5mans. Sometimes you gotta tell the range to stand in it.

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I've found that the instinct to not stand in crap on the ground carries over into healing crap on the ground as well, unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by Jfury09

Started just healing this expantion around and raid healing for the first time ever. Just got into BoT with guild and was given a heal assignment of healing the War main tank (Halfus) and group heals when i can. From what i have been told healers are to be doing 9k Hps. I was having a hard time even getting 8k and when i was pulling 8k was pretty much out of mana by the time first dragon is down. I done what has been said on here. Keep ES on tank with Rip. HW with GHW needed with a chain heal from time to time on a meele dps after my 2nd healing wave with Tidal Waves ( riptide is almost always on cd for 2 sec right after the 2nd heal).

I use to have alot of haste and from what ppl have told me is to get crit. It seems that is up in the air with alot of ppl. I see alot of ppl going haste others crit. But none the less i am having a hard time pulling anything near 9k hps with doing what i have said above without blowing mana

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Don't get so bogged down in numbers. Healing meters are a rough guide, that's it. Who cares if you're doing 8k if you do your job well?

I don't really have any advice on your specific situation (crit does seem like it would do you some good, mana-wise - but I don't play a resto sham).

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Originally Posted by Vistol

Simply put, shaman are the most "offensive" healers in wow, you should use all tools you have, many often overlook the fact the best heals are the ones you never have to cast.

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Absolutely listen to Vistol. His entire post has being my healing bible since burning crusade. I'd say much of mastery (no pun intended) is understanding the fight mechanics themselves. Look for whatever the gimmicks are, if you can use any of your non-heal tools then take the aggressive stance and use them.

One thing I stress in my heroics: Crowd Control is our friend! I don't know how other classes heal, but I hate when the group wants me to exert myself and eat through mana. They don't loose any DPS (as they should only focus on one target ANYWAY) and you can keep your mana bar not only high, but filled if Telluric Currents permits. Allowing fast transition into the next pull.

As for gear and gem I have been working to Crit. Haste was a Wrath stat because with the already bloated numbers you never had to worry over mana. But crit/spirit is a big help right now. Haste will have its moment, I'm sure, but IMO not at the time.

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Originally Posted by Ion

I've found that the instinct to not stand in crap on the ground carries over into healing crap on the ground as well, unfortunately.

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This is so true. I find myself doing it when I am dps'ing instead of healing with my shaman. I know better, but instinct kicks in and before I know it, I have moved out of the colorful stuff on the ground. This is where the /yell Casting Healing Rain, EVERYONE in.... macro comes in damn handy. I am going to be making my macro tonight.

Still in the process of gearing my Resto Sham for raids (ilvl 345), but there is one area of healing that I am finding extremely difficult as a Resto Sham - in 5 mans when everyone is spread out and taking fairly significant damage. Healing rain is a no-go, chain heal doesn't have enough HPS and wont hit everyone, Riptide has a significant CD, HW doesnt heal enough. Only options seems to be GHW and HS, but I oom in just 12 GHW casts at full mana. I not talking about party members taking unnecessary damage that could be avoided, I'm referencing fights like the 2nd to last and last boss of Tol'vir, worm in Stonecore, etc. These are fights that require movement and deal damage to all party members. I find what happens is if I get behind keeping everyone topped off, I cannot recover without ooming in 10-15 seconds or not being able to at all. I feel like when all 5 members are taking damage, Blizz expects us to use HR/CH to get them back up. But when those aren't feasible, I oom extremely quickly, or simply dont have enough HPS to get everyone back up just using single cast spells. I feel other heals can make up with this with hots and shields, but I am unsure of how to prevail as a Resto Sham. I can't even spare a GCD to refresh water shield or even dispell in these situations. Seems like fights where I CAN use HR on the entire group = easy mode, otherwise it is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible to keep everyone up. This isn't simply triage, to me it feels like shamans are lacking something in this in-between area.

tl;dr: How to heal 5 mans when everyone is spread out and taking fairly significant damage as a Resto Sham? Seems like other healers have enough hots/shields to recover, but we have one 6 sec cd targeted HoT and Spiritwalkers grace : /

If theres a druid in the group they shouldnt mind popping innervate if you ask. Also, ive learned that getting better gear helps. At first i thought some bosses were way too difficult to heal but as i got better gear and other people got better healing got easier. Certain bosses are still tough, but currently with an ilvl of 357, its wierd thinking some of those bosses were hard before

I really like the idea of stacking more haste to get a "free" HW. I am just hesitant of re arranging my gear because I feel like my heals are solid right now but I do run into some mana issues.

Right now I am at the soft Haste cap and started stacking crit and a little mastery. I am roughly at 2k spirit.

For anybody who has been stacking haste and trying to spam HW, do you feel it has improved your mana efficiency? Also, many ppl have seemed to be talking up healing surge while I really like the combo of unleash elements and a GHW, actually GHW is my primary heal.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/960bu...m/healingDone/

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/960bu...ggd/details/0/

Should I change GHW with HS? Or should i unleash the elements more with riptide?

Also with Mana Tide totem, the totem has a 3 min cooldown while my trinkets (that proc spirit) have a 2 min CD. To benefit the raid I would like to pop my mana tide first but to benefit myself i would prefer popping my trinkets first since they are on a 2 min CD. Popping Mana Tide earlier seems for some of the ticks to consume an already full mana bar so I am in debate in what to pop first, does anybody else run into this issue?

I stopped really prioritizing haste once I got to 916 rating (for the extra tick on ELW, with WoA totem) and focused on getting my crit up instead. I don't avoid haste but I'm not gemming for it or reforging into it. My crit is around 25% with Kings and might now, and I found that to be the best boost to my mana efficiency. I'm still not sold on our mastery, I've been mostly reforging it into crit or haste, depending on what's already on the piece. Now my gear isn't AMAZING, but I'm at 347 item level and I generally finish fights in most heroics with about 60-70% mana. Raids are a different story. I've limited experience in cata raid healing, but I spent a couple hours wiping in Blackwing Descent with a pug, with all 3 heals pumping 14k+ hps and still losing ppl to parasites. I was able to keep that up, chaining mana cooldowns...for about 3 minutes before I was completely wiped out. I feel that was the group executing tactics incorrectly more than a healer issue (I can't imagine a group taking damage in excess of 42k dps is actually executing properly) and I can't see ever getting geared enough to cover that kind of damage for an entire 10 minute boss fight.

You're right Musclebound, it was the group executing the tactics wrong. The good thing with the Magmaw encounter, though, is you can get your entire mana bar back to full from completely empty during the spike phase where he takes more dmg. During the body fight, it's not that healing intensive if people do it correctly and you'll generally go through about 3/4ths your mana bar, but you can make up for it during the spike phase :-) Telluric Currents while being hit capped from the spirit talent in the elemental tree is awesome.

Not too sure if it still too early in the game to have these ..but here is hoping for the best.

I am looking for some good round numbers to stop stacking stats. If I could get a list of these it would be great.

Looking for

Spirit
Haste
Spell power
Mastery

Or any other useful stat that may help me in 5 mans and raids and were I will need the hit a cap for them.
Thanks.

I must say, I've not experienced trouble healing at all with my shaman. I find using ES on tank with a Riptide ticking and then using HW as it goes very effective. And Chain Heal needs some lovin'! It's great for healing up your tanks and melee when theres AOE going on.
- Yeah sure, throw a Healing Surge on those who need a quick heal or use GHW if you've got tidal waves up.

Going oom often? I'm not THAT good geared but as far as I can remember, I only oom on one single heroic boss fight. That being third boss in Grim Batol, Drahga Shadowburner. Which, with a tank and melee who doesn't know what bad stuff on the ground is.. pretty intense so to say.

I currently don't have very much mana problems unless I'm forced to throw down some GHW spammage without casting flameshock for the focused insight talent.

I find that using unleash elements on a dps for the slight heals and then using the 20% direct heal increase to do a pretty large healing wave works nice.
In addition, I noticed that I like to transition between casting unleash elements - healing and then flameshock - healing wave/GHW or even unleash elements-flameshock-GHW for more efficient heals.

As for gearing and gemming, i dont even touch crit, i lean on int/spirit/haste/mastery
mastery increases your healing the lower your target's HP is.
So far, I've had an "Oh shit" moment, and with the help of mastery, FS and UE, i did a FAT 121k GHW.
Spirit for the obvious mana regen, but also, if you want a dps offspec, your resto gear is also your dps gear, i currently do around 12k average dps in my healing gear.
haste, i dont really know why i seem to prefer haste to crit but it seems that haste makes a difference when you can spam healing wave on your tank faster with the added riptide buff and with healing wave being almost being a 0 mana used spell, it might help.

i totally almsot forgot about healing rain, i love this spell. I dont use it often because it seems to eat a chunk of my mana and alot of the times the dps and tank move around way too much for it to be of any efficiency but in fights like valiona and whatnot, its pretty valuable.

im not an expert on shaman healing but this is what ive experienced thus far.

Recently started raiding and one golden rule I have found is not to panic about people on low hp unless they are in immediate danger. There are very very few fights that require Greater Healing Wave. I generally steer clear of this unless it is coupled with Unleash Life, or it is going to be used as a tank-saver coupled with Nature's Swiftness.

For those unavoidable AoE pulse fights (such as the last phase on many encounters such as Ascendant Council) where people aren't all stacked up together, I believe that keeping Riptide on as many people as possible and using Healing Surge is the most viable option. Mastery is a very helpful stat here, hence why I have reforged into it - most of the fights that cause wipes involve heavy raid-wide damage and the ability to increase your healing output as damage output also increases is a very handy tool. I would highly recommend Mastery rating to anyone who currently dislikes it and furthermore take into consideration that in patch 4.1 Mastery will apply to all heals, and not just direct heals/Healing Rain.

I see an (even brighter than it already is) future ahead for restorations shamans.

I myself have been running into some issues healing in 5 mans now in Cata. What I see my self have issues with the most are things like the very first pull in Heroic Halls of Origination, and Stonecore if one of the NPC's transforms into the elemental that does the whirlwind with the AoE damage.

What I see happening on say Halls is the damage to melee is huge, I've play with a pally that is ilvl 358 and has 151k Health and it seems like with in 3 seconds of fighting the group his health is critically low and I have to bust off healing surges to prevent him from dying. Alot of the times between those two heroic pulls I find myself going OOM, i'm not sure if its maybe i'm getting unlucky and getting alot of melee in the group or what.

I've tried a couple things like reforging, enchants, glyphs, talents etc...

Right now I just want to get myself confident in 5mans heroics again.

Here is my character, I did some changes as far as forging and stuff goes so not sure if its updated or not by the time anyone see's this.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...talent/primary

Tip on elementals:
You can chain-cast Bind Elemental to prevent a LOT of damage (really goes well against casters). This might actually allow you to prevent more damage than you could possibly heal!
Also, if those guys transform, it's your group's fault, not yours. The entire IDEA of those guys is to not let them transform.

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Originally Posted by javelin3o4

I myself have been running into some issues healing in 5 mans now in Cata. What I see my self have issues with the most are things like the very first pull in Heroic Halls of Origination, and Stonecore if one of the NPC's transforms into the elemental that does the whirlwind with the AoE damage.

What I see happening on say Halls is the damage to melee is huge, I've play with a pally that is ilvl 358 and has 151k Health and it seems like with in 3 seconds of fighting the group his health is critically low and I have to bust off healing surges to prevent him from dying. Alot of the times between those two heroic pulls I find myself going OOM, i'm not sure if its maybe i'm getting unlucky and getting alot of melee in the group or what.

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In both of the situations you mentioned, you can use Wind Shear to dramatically reduce the incoming damage. The transformation in Stonecore is a long cast and can be interrupted - although, if it gets off then it's your group's fail, not yours. In HoO, look for a mob called Temple Shadowlancer. They channel a spell called Pact of Darkness that does massive damage to everything in melee range - interrupt that.

This is in addition to the usual stuff - somebody should be marking, targets need to be prioritized correctly, and CC should be used as necessary to avoid having multiple high-damage mobs up at the same time.